


merits of a whiskey mouse

by fated_addiction



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's a pattern. Lose the beginning. Lose the end. You'll only see four walls.</i> Clint, Natasha, and an apartment that doesn't exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	merits of a whiskey mouse

“I don’t understand you,” he says to her once, and only _once_ , as if it were the most impossible thing for him to say. She takes this to heart – this is the first real thing she comes to understand about him, that sullen, tight sort of honesty that is both rare and oh so stupidly dangerous. There is no place for that, _this_ in their world, whatever that’s come to mean.

Maybe it starts here.

Maybe it doesn’t.

 

 

The aftermath is more than simple.

There is a mission. Then there are more missions to follow. Life goes on; Fury expands on resolve. It’s a pattern. Lose the beginning. Lose the end. You'll only see four walls.

Clint buys coffee. She sits next to him in the diner; same both side, all boots and concrete. She hates the New York skyline.

“It’s too busy,” she told him once, maybe. Natasha today says: “The coffee’s terrible.”

He snorts. “Brat.”

It’s not a total lie. The coffee is terrible. The back of her jeans sticks to the vinyl and drags the heels of her boots into the seat. A waitress hums some Christmas tunes and she is only too aware of summer, lick, split and sweat at her throat.

She still bites into the paper cup. He finishes off the rest of her donut. Sugar sticks to his mouth and she should laugh.

Natasha shrugs. “What?”

“Sometimes,” he flicks at her arm, and then drops his head back, against the booth. It’s a stupid pause. “Sometimes,” he says, “you’ve just got to have terrible coffee. It’s a character builder – we all need those.”

“You re-read the handbook,” she says dryly.

“There’s a handbook?”

His voice is dry. Hers lightens. She shifts and twists her legs to the booth. Her knees catch into his thigh and then she crosses them underneath her.

“There’s always a book.”

Clint bites at his thumb. His glasses lower over his nose. She doesn’t see his eyes. She hasn’t, she thinks, weeks into this and then weeks out of _this_. It’s still quiet, the city and the next roundabout villain or billionaire that gets into trouble. It’s about pieces and parts, Natasha has long decided. Each is interchangeable. Each holds a character. It doesn’t make too much of an impact; she keeps compartments for each reason and each reason maintains a place.

Her teeth flick into her lip; the skin tastes like the coffee, burnt and salty.

The rest of their conversation goes like this:

“Stark’s still a dick.”

“It was a nice plane – ”

“You know, they still need to fix the tool chest; the mag that I had was totally lame. Totally _lame_.”

“You hate guns.”

“I’m not a girl – ” she absolutely laughs and it still surprises him, “look, I’m just saying that there’s always a better plan.”

“There’s always a better plan.”

“You didn’t _have_ to rewire the mainframe.”

And then there’s amusement – “Were you showing off?”

“I didn’t think it was bad this time around.” And pause, there’s coffee too: “I so wasn’t though.”

He’s indignant, petulant even, and she lets out this laugh, lighter, warm even, a misplaced sound that sort of bounces and gets lost in the few barters of noise that the restaurant makes. Fitting in is a second skin. You do not hear her responsibilities; her voice remains toned, even keel, and he sits close enough for them to stand as one person in everyone else’s mind.

It’s a problem. It was then too.

Everything after Budapest.

It’s how this goes.

 

 

  
If she were not Natasha, it would all belong to Loki – Budapest, and San Ricardo, and those little port towns into the Spanish coast; there is Argentina and the heat, and that time, that one time where everything went completely wrong and she didn’t trust him enough to keep her guns close as he stayed awake for seventy-two more hours, point cocked and as close as the rest of her knives at her knees and thighs.

But she’s not just Natasha and they are finding their footing again, right back into smaller missions, little digs here and there with Banner and Stark and all those ridiculous things she never really inherently owe up to because she is much faster than that.

Picture this.

Picture a nameless apartment – it’s small, curled into a corner of Brooklyn. There are two, twin trees; the cluster looms into the second floor.

“A vacation?”

“It’s never long enough –” Clint calls out from the kitchen, appearing at the doorframe. There is a can of soup in his hand. He eats it with a plastic spoon. “I mean,” he says, “by the time I get there, I’m already bored – and there’s no fucking way I’m going hiking again. I shot wolves the last time.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re a baby.”

“I don’t do beaches either,” he interrupts.

“Ah,” her voice is dry. “I remember –” she remembers calibers and pistols, and nameless identities that have been stored away for other days. “Your skin’s terribly sensitive.”

“Fuck you. Sunscreen’s important, Nat.”

She smirks. “Bay- _bee_.”

He points the spoon at her. He scowls too. His eyes are sharp.

“You’re stupidly lucky, you know –”

“Barton, I’m not going to keep calling you an idiot.”

His mouth turns. “Dare you,” he says, and then he’s shoving his spoon back into the can, disappearing into the kitchen. It clatters somewhere. A door opens and closes. Outside, she hears the neighbors start to come up the stairs. Another laugh hits at the door; Natasha flinches.

“But Barton, _really_?” and it’s almost like he’s daring her. It rings bitter and sharp. “I sound like a footnote.”

“Idiot,” she stays dry.

There are habits: she never called him Barton, so she just doesn’t call him Barton; this apartment will never be found – a good spy has secrets that have secrets and within them, even with a partner, the crooks and corners hold the most weight.

She still shrugs because she shrugs and it pushes her up to stand. She meets him halfway again, leaning in the frame of the door. On his good side, the kitchen is empty, save for the can in the sink and the open window.

Her fingers graze his hip. “You’ve never cared.”

“That’s what you think.” A laugh fazes into his voice.

“I think a lot of things.”

He snorts.

“You’re not funny,” she adds, and again, her fingers graze his hip. They are steady. The fabric of his shirt cools under her thumb. She tests a tug and he chuckles. “Seriously,” she says.

“I’m not trying to be.”

He leans over her this way, half-resting into the archway again. He fumbles a hand against her hip; it’s tight, it’s quick, and his fingers stretch over her as if she were wound just too tightly. She shifts. His mouth falls and it’s hot against her jaw. It seems to sink into her skin.

All she can do is remain still.

“What are you doing?” he murmurs.

And suddenly, it’s all just too abrupt, drier than what her native tongue sometimes feels against the roof of her mouth, the way Budapest always seems to exist – too hard, too cold, too soon – and she is supposed to understand betrayal at its best, trained to breathe it in, but he’s still here and neither of them understand how to commit to what that feels like to say out loud.

It’s not what they do. Not even in that moment, back before Budapest, back before she wrapped a fist around his throat and the gun, the force of the mental from his fist that almost broke her skin.

“I trust you,” he says, and there is a knot in her throat.

“Stop,” she manages.

She feels his cheek press into hers. He nuzzles her slightly.

“You need to know.”

“I don’t know what you want me to –” she stops and his fingers are tight against her hip; they crawl into her hair, after, and pull against the back of her neck. “I know how to make that decision,” she says.

“But then – ” he stops too, and it’s as if they’re children. His voice is small. “Do I want to know?” he asks.

And she counters: “Why are we talking about this now?”

It’s easy to make it a non-issue. He pulls at a few curls; she feels his nails dig and catch a knot.

“None one around, Nat,” he murmurs and licks his lips. They catch her skin. “Bullshitting’s not really my style. You’re the selective one.”

Her eyes roll.

“You keep bringing this up.”

“It’s not over for me yet,” he says, and means it. There’s the way his voice catches; he exhales and it feels tight.

She hits his chest. The sweatshirt pulls over his knuckles. She found it in the closet and there’s a hole at her wrist.

“It won’t be,” she says, and pauses. 

She turns her head back and then over, and somehow, sort of, her mouth is opening over his, almost a sigh, not quite a sign, and in between there, there’s a kiss and a need for air. She wets her lips. Her tongue touches his.

“It’s different if it were your choice.” She explains: “You told me,” and the hesitation crawls over her. Her voice is softer, small. “I remember.”

His fingers slip. His skin against hers; it’s careless and his nails are pressing over the curve of her hip, back over her belly, and she jerks a little, letting him turn her into the wall. They stand there, still with her mouth grazing his, too close, always _too_ close, and she’s far from sure if he’s grinning or not grinning.

She tastes her own words again: _he made a different call_. The front button of her jeans pops.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you,” he says quietly. “You know that.”

“Is that the point?” she asks.

Her mouth opens and closes too. She’s back to kissing him. Her fingers gather at the back of his neck again. He sighs; she gives back no response.

She remembers the sweatshirt. He has it halfway over her head and it isn’t hers.

 

 

What this is not supposed to be –

because understand, really understand, that there are a million different scenes, scenarios, and conversations that this isn’t supposed to be and Clint will tell you (“She made me a better liar,” and a pause, over a beer, he’ll grin: “Could’ve used her when I was a kid.) that you learn to keep to certain habits that cue survival

– an apartment that is _theirs_ , Natasha’s vodka kicked to the floor and Clint’s bag of shit somewhere by the door. There are winter boots. A can of soda lives in the fridge next the empty six-pack. Look, okay, there are no spare bandages in the medicine cabinet; seriously, neither of them fucking cares about where the bathroom is – he’ll say this to someone later, better for sound in a different context and with a stupid, huge grin. Pictures keep to the mundane bits of artwork on the wall. He makes a joke about Montana. She smiles to hide her confusion. Maybe her head hits a piece before the bedroom. Maybe he laughs into the plane between her breasts. She is hot and slick and he touches her because he wants to, because want and need are the same thing here.

Instead they fuck open-mouthed. Her into the bed; he drags her by the hips, up, up and over his lap, in the bed that is theirs but not theirs in an apartment that will not exist for now, maybe ever. He calls her _tight_. Punishment is bright and cyclical.

He still breathes into her and she lets him. She counts each mark in her skin and bites back. For her, it’s his throat and just over the scar on his shoulder. He grunts and rocks back and pulls too hard. She has to let him, understand. His fingers curve against her cunt and he’s insider he, waiting for her to stretch, hook, and slide her legs around her waist. They’re quiet. 

None of this is about forgiveness.

In this apartment that doesn’t exist, Natasha knows this better than most.


End file.
